There are lots of different things that motivate me to get some exercise. One of them is streaks. I currently have a workout streak of 122 days in a row. What constitutes a workout for me is running at least four miles, climbing at the gym, or skiing or climbing or biking outside. Granted some of those days involved just doing six routes at the gym, which isn't much, but it was enough for me to keep the streak alive. My initial goal was to do 100 days in a row. My 100th day was climbing the Silk Road on the First Flatiron with Chris Weidner. After that I figured I'd take a day of rest and nearly did, but got out for flat 4-mile run in my neighborhood. Why? I don't know. Because it's fun to have a streak going. I know it isn't the best way to great athletic performance. I'm not concentrating on that now, though I'll start this coming week to train for the Bolder Boulder.
Streaks are just motivating for me and whatever helps me get exercise is a good thing. My buddy Mark then put the idea into my head of working out every day in 2015. I haven't made that a goal, though. I figure illness or injury will shut me down eventually. In fact, if it wasn't for one day of illness in November (where I still played flag football on the beach and played in the ocean), my streak would be twenty-five days longer - 147 days. When it ends, that will be fine and I'll just start another one.
I have another streak going of late. Starting with last Saturday when I climbed Longs Peak, I've done a summit every day for seven days in a row now. Some of these summits are questionable, to be sure. On Thursday I did Flagstaff, which isn't a
ranked summit. Mt. Sanitas isn't a ranked summit either and I've been counting both as unique peaks for my goal of doing 52 unique summits this year (one per week). But I'm free to make my own rules.
Yesterday I climbed the First (twice) and Second Flatirons and I'm counting those as summits (notice that I don't use the word "peak" for this streak). Peter Bakwin caught me halfway up the First and we finished together and downclimbed off. Running down the trail, we first ran into Quinn Carrasco, the director of the LaSportiva Trail Running Team, of which I am a member. We then found Adam Massey about to start up Atalanta, so I joined him for a lap. On the summit I met James Hinkley - a Superior resident like me. I didn't know him. He asked me, "Are you a Minion?" I said yes. He said, "Are you the head Minion?" I said yes. He said, "Are you Bill?" Yes, I am. Cool. I snapped a photo of him rappelling off the First and we hope to get out and scramble the Second Flatiron sometime soon.
Today, I'll have to get some summit. I can't break my streak!
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